The Hisense U820 Smartphone - A (informal) review

The above is a Hisense U820. It is the smartphone I am currently using and also the source of much ire in me.

I'll explain the ire comment in a second, but to start, allow me to start with the basics. The Hisense U820 is the first touchscreen phone I have ever owned personally, having upgraded from a Blackberry previously (Yes, South Africa was in a phase about Blackberry's), but I had experience handling other people's smartphones. Now understandably in hindsight, there was not a massive upgrade to be had in getting this phone, but prior to it's purchase I had not even heard of Hisense, and felt in my typical "Try anything twice" mode of thinking, thought it would be interesting to try. Fucking... Idiot...

Now before you think: "Well why didn't you check some reviews before you got it?" I should mention that I happen to be an idiot... sometimes... Also, my brother knows a lot about smartphones, so I took it under his advisement that it was an alright phone, which in honesty, it is.

Squarely, you are already asking for trouble when buying old technology. Android or no, things change. Oh yes, speaking of android, I should get the phone features from somewhere.

Android 2.3

1 GHz Processor

3.5" Full touch screen

1420 mAh battery

Dual-SIM, Dual Standby

512MB on board memory

2.0M Auto Focus Camera

There we go. Now, it has all the usual gizmo's and doodad's you would expect of an Android smartphone like installing apps and moving the homescreen etc. The usual gimmicks. There are however a few of downside's to this phone, especially in today's digital world.

Firstly, notice this thing has 512MB of on board memory and Android 2.3. The first issue, it can't update it's OS. It is physically incapable of downloading a new version of Android. Why? I don't know, I'm not a tech geek. (really... no really? Okay, maybe a little.) Moving on. Beside that irritant, it has also deemed that a couple apps, such as Youtube, Gmail, Google Maps, etc as well as the default keyboard program TouchPal must be stored on the phone instead of on the SD card. 

Doesn't really sound like much of an issue except it tries to update those programs constantly. Why is that a problem? 512MB is too small for everything to be up to date at the same time. *Bashes head onto desk*

This phone attempts daily to update programs despite knowing it doesn't have the space. That is stupid... Furthermore, downloading further applications (when they are supported by it's archaic OS) requires that they first be download TO the phone before they can be moved to the SD card. Which means anytime I want to install a new app, I have to play digital tetris with my internal storage by deleting programs and then re-downloading them. The definition of joy.

Finally, the fact that makes me utterly P.O'd with this phone and the reason for my aforementioned ire is the fact that the U820 closes my Wi-Fi and Data connections when it is locked. I am not a technologically inept person. But there has been no obvious reference to a setting or option that causes this and there is no mention of it on the internet. That aside, this is a rather large issue for me because I now have to be an OCD idiot and unlock my phone every five seconds to maintain the connections, lest I not know of any messages I receive. To be blunt... that's STUPID.

In any case, the Hisense U820 is not a terrible phone. It does redeem itself in being fairly functional for it's price and relative age. It sends and receives calls and SMS's, it can run *some* apps and it's battery tends to last about a day with my frequent OCD message checks and other use which is fair considering I've had the phone since January. 

But it's still an idiot phone and I look forward to my upgrade.

Anyways. That's been my review/rant for the Hisense U820. Please have a lovely day/night.

Au Revoir Mon Ami (No, I don't know French)

Faulty Hardware and the joys it brings...

The above is an accurate description of how I feel at this current juncture in time.

You may have noticed that there has been a rather large period of silence since my last post on this blog. If I hadn't bothered to take this blog seriously, I'd have put that down to boredom... but alas no. Like my fellow facedesking compatriot above, there is an actual reason to my silence.

For reasons beyond my grasp, my graphics card has decided it has had enough of my prolific photo editing abuse and has promptly given up doing much useful with itself. While still functional, due to a very strange error concerning the way the OpenGL drivers in Photoshop utilize it which developed over the course of a few months, I am no longer able to effectively do much in Photoshop. And I spent a good few hours trying to find out why but the sad reality is that enabling OpenGL in Photoshop, (that's what lets me use all the cool features to be simple), makes my graphics drivers crash and, in turn, Photoshop to crash. Huzzah. You Bastard... On the upside, if I have a few hours of life to waste, the simpler aspects of Photoshop do work... very... very... slowly. So joys abound.

In any case, seeing as graphics cards are hardly cheap, I will not be spending overmuch time frustrating myself pointlessly with semi-functionality until such time as a replacement is found. Until then, I've heard bird-watching is interesting? 

Scratch that, I'm going to go beat my head on a desk until the resulting vibrations within my cranial cavity begin to sound like music. Or until it hurts. Whichever comes first.

Later Gators.